A peaceful day in the childhood of future heroes
by Keitii Manga
Summary: Written for my eight-year-old nephew, who came up with the plot, although I altered it quite a bit.  Sora, Kairi, and Riku as children just being children playing on the outer island.


** _ Long ago, on Destiny Islands, before anyone knew about disappearing words or the fact that the island was home to the boy who would become the most important person any of the worlds had ever seen, the key bearer, the islands were just islands. Just peaceful islands where three children grew up happily, always together. This is where our story begins._**

Sora was walking along the beach of the outer island, the one his dad sometimes brought him to while he fished so he could play with his two best friends, Riku and Kairi, when he heard a girlish giggle. He looked up to see Kairi spinning around in a dress much too big for her.

"Sora!" she called, seeing him looking at her. "Come try on dresses with me!"

Sora wrinkled his nose at her and said "No way! I'm a boy! Boys don't wear dresses!"

"But Sora!" she whined, "It's only dress up! Everyone can play dress up, you silly head!"At this, she threw a frilly pink dress at Sora's head. "Aahhh!" he yelled, "Get it off, get it off! It's too girly and old!"

"Old?" She grabbed at the dress. "What do you mean?"

"Look at it," he said, pointing, "It's really long. That means it's for old people to wear."

Kairi shook her head. "I'm old enough to wear it. After all, I just turned seven last week. That's almost as old as a grown-up."

"Grown-ups are way older than that, Kairi. My mom is thirty-four, so that means she's at least ten years older than us, right? That's super old!" Sora exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air.

Kairi crossed her arms. "Well, my momma is the same age as your momma and she gave me these dressses to dress up in! So since she gave me them, I can wear them!"

Sora turned away and said "Okay, but I still don't want to wear girl clothes."

Kairi shoved the dress into the bag her mother sent with her on her day trip to the outer island. "I bet Riku will wear one!" she exclaimed happily.

Sora looked around and said "Where is Riku, anyway?"

Kairi shrugged, picking up her bag. "Maybe we should look for him. He was here a little while ago."

They then set off to find him, searching under the dock, around the waterfall, and even inside the seaside shack. He was nowhere to be found.

"Where is he?" Sora asked as they climbed the stairs to the other side of the island.

"I don't know," mumbled Kairi, "Maybe he went swimming."

"But we're not allowed to do that without a grown-up! My dad will get mad at him if he does that!" Sora yelled, now worried.

"Let's go look at the water!" Kairi suggested eagerly as they finally opened the door to the other side at the top of the seaside shack.

But before they could head towards the water, Kairi gasped and waved her finger at the direction of the trees and said "There he is!"

Sora followed the direction of her finger and saw what she was pointing at. Riku was there, sitting under a coconut tree, sleeping.

"Well, at least he won't get in trouble now," said Sora, "But why is he sleeping?"

"Sora, you sleep all the time!" Kairi laughed. "I had to wake you up once we got here, remember? You fell asleep on your daddy's boat..."

Sora stomped his foot. "That's different! That was this morning and I was still sleepy! Anyway," he said, turning to their sleeping friend, "We should go wake him up. I want to race!"

"And I want to play dress-up some more! I bet he'll play with me first!" she sang as she raced past Sora toward Riku.

"Hey!" Sora called as he ran behind her.

Kairi came to a halt a foot away from Riku and spun sround to face Sora. "Do you think he's dreaming? My momma says not to wake people when they're dreaming..."

Sora blinked, "How can you tell, though?"

They both looked at Riku. Up close, they could see he was snoring with his left knee pulled up under his chin while his right leg was stuck out in front of him.

"I think people talk and make faces when they're dreaming or something," Kairi said, "But he isn't talking."

"Is he making faces?" Sora asked, leaning over their sleeping friend. Instead of getting a better look at Riku, however, he tripped over Riku's outstretched leg and tumbled forward into the tree he was resting on.

"Woah!" he yelled as he grabbed onto the tree, making it wobble. Before he could stand up properly again, a large coconut fell from the tree and landed right on Riku's head.

"Oh, no!" Kairi gasped, kneeling down next to Riku. "Are you alright?"

By now Riku was awake and rubbing his head groggily. "Huh...?" He mumbled.

Sora knelt down next to his friends. "Um, sorry about that, Riku. You okay?" he asked.

Riku looked at the two for a moment, uncomprehending what was happening in front of him. The coconut hit him in the head rather hard, so he was still disoriented. He realized that they were waiting on something, and after a minute he nodded his head, wondering if that was the right thing to do. After seeing the looks of acceptance on their faces he decided that this was the right thing to do. He heard the girl (he couldn't quite remember her name at the time) ask him something else and decided to nod again. This seemed to make her happy, so he decided that this was once again the right thing to do.

What Kairi had asked him was really "Let's play dress-up if you're okay! Riku, put on this dress, okay?"

After a few minutes of not understanding why his arms were being lifted or why he felt as if he was being laughed at (as Sora was laughing at him), Riku was finally finished 'dressing up'.

"You look beautiful!" Kairi gushed as she stepped nack to look at her work. She had had to help him put on the frilly pink dress Sora had refused to wear earlier since he still didn't seem awake enough to do it himself. Of course, she only put the dress on over what he already had on, but she still thought it was adorable.

However, when Sora finally stopped laughing enough to look at Riku's face, he realized that he didn't look good. "Hey, Kairi, are you sure he's okay?" he asked taking a step toward Riku.

Kairi blinked. "What do you mean? He's fine, Sora. You're just jealous that he's wearing a pretty dress and you're not!"

Ignoring her, he raised his hand and slapped Riku across the face. Before Kairi could even yell at Sora for hitting their friend, Riku shook his head and yelled, "What?" as if he had just been caught sleeping in class. Instantly his eyes snapped open and he looked at his friends as if he had just seen them for the first time.

"Wha-" he started but was cut off when he looked down at his clothes and let out a shreak, "What am I wearing?"

Kairi looked confused. "But you said you wanted to play dress-up with me."

Sora laughed again at Riku as he hastily pulled off the dressand shoved it back into Kairi's arms. "I told you he wouldn't want to play dress-up!" Sora snickered.

Kairi frowned at the two and seeing as she couldn't get a word in between Riku's yelling at Sora and Sora's laughing at Riku, she sighed and stuffed her dress in her bag and walked away mumbling "I'll go collect some fresh water for Sora's dad for when he gets back."

And with that, the three friends were back to their normal selves, racing and playing until the sun started to set and Sora's father picked the children up from the outer island.

**~End~**


End file.
